Diamond League season finale: Neeraj Chopra, Avinash Sable lead Indian challenge

Neeraj Chopra and Avinash Sable will take on the Indian challenge in the Diamond League season finale starting on September 13, 2024. | Photo credit: ANI/Getty Images

Javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra faces high expectations, while steeplechase athlete Avinash Sable would see it as an opportunity to make up for a disappointing Olympic Games when the star-studded Diamond League season finale kicks off in Brussels on Friday (13 September 2024), featuring the world’s best athletes.

For the first time, the spectacle will be spread over two days and the field of participants will consist of top athletes from all continents, including an unprecedented number of Olympic medal winners, who will compete for the highest honours in 32 disciplines.

World record holder pole vaulter Armand DuPlantis, American sprint queen Sha’Carri Richardson and superstar hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone are among the big names set to grace the King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels.

Sable, the national record holder in the 3000-meter steeplechase, will make his first appearance in the DL season finale on Friday after finishing 11th at the Olympics.

Chopra, who won a silver medal at the Paris Olympics after a historic gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, hopes to end his season on a high on Saturday.

This is the first time that two Indians appear in a DL final.

Sable finished 14th in the overall Diamond League standings with three points from two meets. But four athletes ranked higher than him — Ethiopia’s Lamecha Girma (injured), New Zealand’s Geordie Beamish, Japan’s Ryuji Mura and the U.S.’s Hillary Bor — dropped out, allowing him to slip into the top 12.

Five of the fourteen DL series meetings around the world this season feature a men’s 3000 meter steeplechase event.

The 29-year-old Sable finished sixth in the Diamond League stage in Paris on July 7 with a national record of 8:09.91, bettering his own previous record. On August 25, he was 14th in the Silesian stage with a time of 8:29.96.

Chopra, on the other hand, reached the DL final after finishing fourth overall with 14 points from his two second-place finishes in the one-day races in Doha and Lausanne.

Each Diamond League season final champion will receive a ‘Diamond Trophy’, USD 30,000 prize money and a wildcard to the World Athletics Championships. The runner-up will receive USD 12,000.

Chopra skipped the final series match in Zurich last week.

The 26-year-old finished two points behind Czech Jakub Vadlech. Grenada’s Anderson Peters and German star Julian Weber took the top two spots with 29 and 21 points respectively.

Chopra has been struggling with poor form this season and is expected to see a doctor to treat a groin injury that has plagued him all season and is hampering his bid to reach 90 metres.

He won the stage in Lausanne in 2022 and 2023 and finished second to Vadlejch in last year’s winner-takes-all finale in Eugene, USA.